


My Heart With Shame

by Dulcidyne



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: All manner of inadvisable impulses, Conversation on the dock, F/M, Haven snippet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 01:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3272072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dulcidyne/pseuds/Dulcidyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had always couched his foolish sentiments in references to her mark. It was safer that way, safer to express concern and admiration for an object than for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Heart With Shame

Commander Cullen was not a man for excessive sentimentality. When would he have had the time for it? There was never a still moment to be found in Haven, especially not after the Herald had returned from Redcliff with all the unchecked power of the mages to reseal the breach in the sky. There was so much to do before it could be over--if it ever could truly be over, and nostalgia didn’t read reports or train recruits for the horrors spewing out of the rift. And yet, here he was.

It was nothing like the little pond in the Honnleath of his childhood, misted over in fog and faded memory. But on nights filled with ink blurring in flickering candlelight and monsters grasping out from the darkness, he sought the frozen water out like a warm memory that had been pressed and preserved under cold glass for safekeeping.

The dry snap of frost scythed over the lake surface and he breathed it in deeply. It was steel sharp, paring away the grit in his lyrium thirsty veins and the fragments of nightmares still needling at the corners of his eyes. It filled him with a strange sort of silence, and with that silence came a clarity he could not recall ever attaining beyond the still pond in Honnleath.

“A little late to be stargazing, Commander.”

He started and turned, recognizing the voice but wondering how he had not heard any sign of her approach. She had a knack for appearing, seemingly from thin air (and on one notable occasion, from rifts in thin air) and if the arch smile on her lips was any indication, she was rather pleased with herself for catching him unaware

It was too early for sunrise, but the clusters of stars braving the gaps in the clouds were already fading into the promise of the grey dawn. Late for stargazing indeed.

Luminous, her eyes regarded him with curiosity. She was always very curious, sometimes embarrassingly so. He suddenly remembered her inquiries into templar celibacy vows and flushed.

“I’ve caught you out.” she smiled at him, head tilting to the side as if to scrutinize him further, “But not stargazing. Were you trying to escape then? You haven’t made it very far. Any complaining mage could easily spot you out.”

He found himself smirking, “Not at all, the ice may be thin enough to break through and with luck, I may drown the next one to complain about the quality of his bed linens.”

She laughed, bright and clear, and he could hear it echo over the frozen water like bells, “You could always redirect their attention to someone else.”

“My original plan. But Cassandra has proven more adept at intimidating men in robes, so I am forced to resort to other alternatives.”

Breezes skimmed the lake, carrying a mellow herbal scent. He noticed she was carrying several stalks of elfroot in one hand and a rucksack in the other. She tucked the leafy stems into the sack, and regarded him directly again.

“Allow me to laud your creativity, if not your outdoorsmanship, given that this ice has proven to be very sturdy in my experience.”

It was moments like this that reminded him of what she was before the disaster at the Conclave marked her hand--a Free Marcher noblewoman, one with a strange proclivity for excursions into the wilderness. Green stained her fingertips and there was a verdant smudge on her cheek as well. His fingertips thrummed with the urge to swipe over it. He spoke in an effort to suppress it, but his voice caught and stuttered as he gestured to the rucksack.

“Are you...that is, what were you doing out?”

“I couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d make myself useful to our overworked apothecary. You don’t fall out of as many trees as I have without becoming very familiar with healing herbs. ”

He raised an eyebrow, “Falling out of trees? A common habit for a noblewoman?”

“Oh no, not…” and Maker’s breath, for once _she_ was the one blushing. Somehow the reversal did more to unsettle his composure than any question she could launch at him about celibacy.

“I wouldn’t be the best example of the sort of habits pious noblewomen enjoy. For one, I despise embroidering Andraste’s image into cushions.”

She hesitated a moment, realizing from his bemused look that her explanation merited further elaboration, “It was an easy way to escape the sisters, and the subsequent lectures for neglecting my education. To this day, I can’t hear the Chant of Light without assessing the nearest herbivory.”

“The Chant of Light is hardly something I would associate with fear.” Cullen said, reigning in his smile and frowning just a little too sternly.

“It’s very lovely but even lovely things can be ruined when a woman is looming over you, correcting every aspect of your recitations to the point where the words themselves are irrelevant compared to how appropriately devout they sound coming out.”

She laughed, looking off towards the encroaching grey, “The sisters despaired of me, they complained that I never looked ponderous enough. When I concentrated too hard, they said I simply looked angry. And then I also had an unfortunate habit of asking inappropriate questions in the middle of my recitations.”

“I could well imagine that.” he murmured.

She smiled but it was strange and distant as if the lake had suddenly dropped between them, “I never listened. The moment someone told me what not to do, I would turn around and do just as I pleased.”

Lamplight from Haven cast her in gold relief against the dismal sky and he suddenly wanted to kiss the smudge of green at her gilded cheek, kiss the frown forming at her mouth, kiss her herb-stained fingertips in worship or adoration, he could not discern which. He took a breath, steadying himself against all manner of inadvisable impulses. It would be the pinnacle of foolishness to entertain the thoughts of something beyond the bounds of their respective positions within the Inquisition. Of late, those thoughts seemed to multiply, popping up unbidden at the most inopportune times.

His shoulder still smarted from earlier when, in the middle of sparring with one of the more competent recruits, he had found himself distracted as she crossed the yard to bring her chestnut mare apples from the scullery. She had leaned against the fence, a lissome curve, reaching out across the distance to beckon with a flash of red tucked in her palm. What would it be like for her to look at him with that soft expression, reach for him with those slender arms, press herself against--even the resounding thwack reverberating through his sword arm wasn't enough to drive the image from his mind.

The glowing slash pulsed against the fingers that curled up around its ragged green edges and she looked towards the ravenous flare in the sky that threatened them all and recited, “I knew then, and cross’d my heart with shame.”

Softly spoken but fervent, not one of the more popular selections, but he could find no fault with her delivery...odd though her choice was. He hadn’t realized that he’d drawn closer but it was too late to back away now. When she suddenly fixed a strange, unreadable stare on him, he cursed his feet for not being able to decide if they wanted more to step forward or back.

“I risked too much going to Redcliff. I wanted to help--selfishly, childishly, without any thought to what I carry. I should have listened to you, been more careful, and instead I jeopardized the only thing that matters.”

Whatever words he had for her remained locked away in his chest, pressing up against his ribs. They weren’t words of anger--he’d already unleashed those upon her--or comfort, because her voice was glittering and hard, falling from her lips like weighty stone--unyielding, seeking no solace and expecting none. Yes, she had risked too much and in doing so, risked everything. Without her mark, they were lost. They had been lost, in the nightmare future she visited.

She was moving as if to draw back away from him and the cold rushed between them. Some strange feeling like loss left him winded, forcing his words out into clumsy tangles left to snag in the icy currents.

“I...that’s not what I meant at all. I feared for your sake as well, not just the risk of losing the mark. Do you think that I merely consider...“

He flushed so hotly, the cold scalded at his throat. It was more censure than confession, and he had no right to either. Not when he so carefully couched his foolish sentiment in references to her mark. It was safer that way, safer to express concern and admiration for an object than for her. And now he had just undone it all and for what purpose? His heart thudded viciously.

“I thank you for your concern.” she replied, voice clipped and precise in an attempt to conceal her pique.

Well of course she was. It was only natural that he sound like an insufferable ass reprimanding her instead of admitting something of the fear fisting tightly in his stomach. And how it turned, pulling at all the invisible strings hooked into his every muscle, knotting him up inside himself. He feared for her. Beyond what was reasonable, far beyond what was appropriate. The rift in the sky pressed in too closely, too hungrily and there were new hollows and shadows to her face.

“You are welcome to it.” he said, with genuine feeling that transmuted the irritation flaring in her eyes into several things all at once. Confusion, surprise, and then his breath stuttered and he felt the world go very, very still as she looked at him. She saw him, saw into him and he couldn’t look away.

No words between them, no awkward starts or fumbled beginnings just his fear and hers and the way his fingertips ached to rub against the shiver at her neck, to warm themselves against her pulse and see if it raced like his. Light unfurled somewhere in the horizon, a gleam of gold illuminating the haunted shadows in her eyes. He could see her determination and guilt, heavy on her soul, the ache of a failure belonging to another future or possibly this one.

But much brighter, he saw something else. He couldn’t name it, but he could feel it fissure through the forgotten hollows of his soul and wrench free hopes long submerged. The painful jolt of it shook him from whatever still moment in time they had escaped into.

“I...I have much to attend to. There is still much to be done before you leave.”

He waited for no response and she gave none...or perhaps he could not hear it over the tidal roar at his temples as he strode over creaking wood and frozen ground. The verse she quoted twisted through the furor in her soft whisper.

‘I knew then, and cross’d my heart with shame.’

Andraste preserve him, but he was a fool.


End file.
